Consumers are still using credit cautiously, as credit quality measures are still improving rapidly, charging less and increasingly paying down balances as card defaults registered the second largest monthly decline since 2005. This could have also to do with the fact consumers aren’t finding jobs very quickly either. A stagnating July unemployment rate held steady…
The PCI Security Standards Council open industry standards body providing management of the PCI DSS published an update to the PCI DSS Wireless Guidelines Information Supplement, providing organizations with the current PCI DSS considerations for implementing wireless technology securely in payments environments.
A product of collaboration with the Council’s Wireless Special Interest Group – comprised of more than 40 participants from POS vendors and network security companies to acquiring banks and large merchants – the wireless guidelines were first published in 2009 to help organizations understand how PCI DSS applies to wireless environments, how to limit the PCI DSS scope as it pertains to wireless and to provide practical methods and concepts for deployment of secure wireless in payment card transaction environments.
Fiserv financial services technology introduced the new Mobiliti mobile banking, alerting and payments suite. Mobiliti unites the functionality of Mobile Money from Fiserv and BankAnywhere from the recently acquired M-Com within a single product suite, and will replace both of those product brands. Mobiliti is available in multiple distinct versions tailored for use by financial institutions of varying sizes within both the United States and international markets. Mobiliti supports SMS (text messaging), mobile browser and downloadable applications for AndroidTM, iPhone and Blackberry.
Green Dot prepaid financial services hired marketing and branding expert Eric Duehring general manager of the Green Dot-branded Card business unit. Duehring will oversee Green Dot-branded card sales, in retail and online, in addition to related Green Dot marketing activities to drive customer acquisition and retention and focus on optimizing the Green Dot brand presence at retail POS. Duehring brings to his new role more than 20 years of marketing and brand-building expertise with companies such as AOL/Time Warner, Microsoft Corporation, and Sara Lee Corporation. Most recently, Mr. Duehring held the position of senior vice president, global brand and general manager, U.S. consumer sales, at Rosetta Stone.
X-Cart eCommerce solutions and CRE Secure cloud-based secure payment solution for merchants forged an alliance to offer CRE Secure’s hosted payment page technology to X-Cart eCommerce merchants through a fully integrated X-Cart module. X-Cart’s eCommerce platform is deployed by thousands of online merchants in more than 100 countries while CRE Secure’s patent-pending HTML Clone technology allows merchant payment pages to be generated on-demand, delivering a seamless experience to the shopper and eliminating the X-Cart platform from the scope of PCI. The PCI DSS requirements for X-Cart merchants that use the CRE Secure integrated shopping cart module can be reduced from the highest levels – Level C or D, which requires a third party auditor for validation, to the lowest, least costly level to maintain compliance – Level A.
Merchant Warehouse secure payment processing and merchant account services announced key hires to its Executive Management Team. This includes Brian Graham, executive VP of sales and David McSweeney, VP, merchant experience. As Merchant Warehouse continues to experience rapid growth in its customer and partner acquisition, its latest additions strengthen the company’s leadership in payment processing. Brian Graham joins Merchant Warehouse with over 25 years of experience in sales and business development, most recently as the senior sales leader at Hewett Associates. David McSweeney brings 20 years of experience in customer service to Merchant Warehouse, most recently as the vice president of merchant processing at Cross Country Automotive, where he was successful in identifying consumers’ needs and wants to enhance the customer experience.
Trusteer secure web access services announced First Data will make Trusteer Rapport and Trusteer Pinpoint available with the First Data Internet Banking solutions and will refer Trusteer to its financial institution clients as a preferred solution provider for risk mitigation and to help enhance financial institution compliance with the new FFIEC guidance on Internet banking security. Trusteer Rapport and Trusteer Pinpoint will help to protect Internet banking sessions from sophisticated Trojans like Zeus, SpyEye, Torpig, and Tatanga that can hijack a user’s browser to commit fraud. Trusteer is currently used by more than 150 leading financial organizations and enterprises in North America and Europe, and tens of millions of end users to protect their online banking, shopping and other communication against sophisticated malware attacks and fraud.
Datacard Group launched several new software and hardware security enhancements designed to help financial card issuers comply with security audits. The new solutions are all configured for the Datacard MX Series card issuance systems, include a software security patch management service, a full suite of Identity Access Management (IAM) features, and other options to increase physical security. Datacard’s patch validation and management software service tests all relevant security patches from Microsoft before they are deployed to the field. The systems will support security requirements with no interruption or slowing of the card production process. Datacard “MX Series” card issuance systems will now be shipped pre-configured with the recommended security settings, according to the company.
Bango mobile payments and analytics is set to provide mobile payments for the Opera Mobile Store, allowing users of the Opera Mini and Opera Mobile browsers to purchase apps and pay for content within apps. Charges go to their carrier bill or through a credit card using Bango’s browser-based payments directly from the mobile handset. The Opera Mobile Store is quickly and easily accessed through a single-click from the Opera Mini and Opera Mobile browsers, making it immediately accessible to more than 100 million customers with no downloading or special provisioning required. The Opera Mobile Store is also accessible through any other mobile browser by going to mobilestore.opera.com. Bango platform also delivers real-time analytics, full reporting and settlement services and customer support.
TruMark Financial Credit Union launched its ‘Customize My Card’ card customization service through agreements with Serverside Group. TruMark customer cardholders without images of their own can now upload one from a number of galleries provided by TruMark Financial, including animals, sports and scenic. The credit union is not charging cardholders for the service.
The SHAZAM Network partnered with Adaptive Payments to launch their new “Pentagon” mobile POS application. The platform will allow merchants to accept mobile PIN- and signature-based transactions using an iPhone. SHAZAM will make the technology available to its nearly 1,500 community financial institutions and its merchant customer base. The technology that supports the Pentagon mobile payments application is unique to the marketplace as it uses Adaptive Payments’ 5DSecure five factor, dual channel authentication technology to authenticate PIN debit transactions quickly and securely. The Pentagon solution is capable of accepting and processing signature-based credit and debit transactions in addition to PIN debit, and is a first in the industry to promote a mobile device capable of processing both types of transactions securely.
Medallion Bank joined the Wolters Kluwer Financial AppOne platform, which automates the indirect lending, credit approval and compliance processes for lenders and the RV and marine dealers they work with. Medallion Bank specializes in financing customers with past credit problems, provides financing to bank-approved marine and recreational vehicle (RV) dealers across the United States, for which AppOne will help automate credit application processing.